Thursday, February 4, 2010

Moonrise Over Sunset (20”x15” acrylic on Crescent watercolor board)

abstract3

This was a lot of fun!  I have many layers of acrylic paint here.  When I began to have a vision of sunsets and moonrises I didn’t want to have just little 3” circles…  so, I lifted in several key places to suggest the larger orb.  To do that I rubbed a cotton rag wet with alcohol.  The lifting works well on this piece because of the very first layer – Golden gloss gel.   After lifting back to to white, I glazed yellow and crimson over my moon and defined darker areas behind it.  Lastly, I applied a little bit of cloudy veil [white mixed with a bit of crimson and thalo blue] over the darkest part of the sun.

Here’s what this painting looked like yesterday afternoon.  Looking at this picture you can see how much lifting I had to do to lighten my sun.

abstract2

Enjoy!

Retweet this

2 comments:

Frank Elliott said...

This reminds me some of the most beautiful nebula that the Hubble Space Telescope has taken. At least as a starting off point. As an eclipse viewer, we went to the North Carolina coast. The Diamond Ring Effect was like a huge ring in the sky. Right before totality, lines of light and then dark shadows rippled across the ground. Interference patterns. Here's the link to Hubble Nebula images. You'll see what I mean: http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/nebula/


Beautiful abstract work Cheryl.

Anonymous said...

I have to learn this stuff, next time Im in Calgary can I come over for a lesson?

Love TIff